A/N: Thank you for all of the reviews and likes and follows and favorites! Please note that I haven't finished The New Hunger yet.

Ch 4

"This is bullshit!" Nora exclaims angrily.

I look up at her, and for a second picture her as a dragon, plumes of smoke emitting from her nostrils. She crosses her arms and rounds on me. "How can you do this to her, R?"

Her words cut through me, deep to my core. My brain searches its inner workings for the right thing to say. "I didn't plan this." I say weakly, and then hate myself for it.

"You were supposed to be better than me." Nora says, and I'm so stunned that I stare at her for a moment.

"You were supposed to be better than me." Nora repeats. "We are all she has left. I'm the one that betrayed her with Perry. You were supposed to take care of her, R."

Nora's words hang in the air and then float gently down in my ears and onto my shoulders. I feel like an elephant is sitting on my back. I gently let go of Julie's hands and place them softly on the couch, and rise to my feet. The weight does not leave me, and I'm glad it doesn't. This is my burden to bare for the rest of my life. I'm easily a foot taller than Nora, but as not to intimidate her, I make no move toward her. My legs rest against the couch cushion, and I feel Julie's warmth as she turns around and puts her back to the sofa. She brings her knees to her chest, and stares at the carpet.

"I'm sorry." I say, "From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry. But I didn't know about her, Nora. I couldn't even remember what day it was, and you expect me to remember that I had a wife?"

"Oh, the epidemic is an excuse for fucking everything." Nora says irritably.

I look at her and almost bust out a laugh. How could she possibly ask me that? "Look, this doesn't change how I feel about Julie." I look down at her then, and she is in almost the exact position that I was. I could almost see the gears of her brain turning, wondering how this changes everything and yet nothing all at the same time. I sit down on the floor next to her. I want to reach over and wrap my arms around her, but I'm unsure if my gesture would be welcome, so I rest my knee against hers.

"I want to meet her." Julie says, so quietly that I'm not sure she knows she said it aloud. She glances at me, and gives me a small smile. That smile is like a ray of sunshine that bursts through my body and into my soul.

"And punch her?" Nora asks.

"You married her, R." Julie says, turning to me. "You must have loved her in another time and place. You've been dreaming about your old life. Maybe this is your brain's way of saying that you miss her. Maybe it's your heart's way of saying that you want her back." She pauses.

I open my mouth to protest, but she puts a finger to my lips. "And... I won't stand in your way." She sighs.

"No," I say, removing her hand from my mouth. "No. You're what I want. This life." I can feel the world around me spinning out of control. I can feel the confines of my heart thumping faster and faster, and I can feel Julie slowly slipping through my fingers. I reach out and twine my fingers through hers. I needed something to hold onto desperately. She squeezes my hand weakly.

"How do you know?" She asks. "You pledged your life to this woman. I can't imagine going through what she did. Thinking she lost you... and then finding you again... I..." Her voice cracks, and she locks her eyes with the floor. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if you didn't give your old life a shot. A part of me wants to keep you all for myself. Just hide you in my room. Have our little sanctuary." She lets out a small laugh, "But I can't. I can't dress you up and cover you in makeup anymore. I just never thought that when you healed the world, there would be these consequences, and I was naive on that part. I didn't think about who would be missing you, who you left behind."

I can't think of anything to say. Her words cut through to me. Yes, I may have married someone... this Beth and had a life with her. Yes, I may have did that, but... it was another time. When the world was bloated with insignificant things. When we took each other for granted. When we fell into such a routine with somebody, we confused it as love. "What do you want me to do?" I ask her. "Whatever it is, I'll do it for you."

"I know, and that's what kills me the most." Julie says, tears running down her face. "I just don't want you to regret anything."

I'm regretting telling her about Beth, I think idly. "I won't. Not as long as we're together." I say.

She sighs, "I'm going to go take a walk. I'll be back soon, okay?" She walks by me and squeezes my shoulder. No hug. No kiss. I feel like I'm going to punch a wall. Why is everything tumbling down around me? I feel my chest rising and falling rapidly as if I'm having an asthma attack.

"I love you." I tell her as she heads toward the door.

"I know. I love you too." She calls back as she walks out the door.

It is those words that haunt me to my core. I stare at the spot she stood just moments before.

"Well," Nora says, and I almost forgot she was in the room. "You've got a mountain to climb."

"Where do you think she's going?"

"Probably to the cemetery."

"I love her." I say.

"Oh, we all know that. But you loved another woman who clearly still loves you. Julie just wants you to be happy, whether it's with her or this ho-bag." She catches herself, "Sorry, I mean your wife."

…...

M really has to thank R. He turns to the brunette next to him on the right and smiles. She smiles back, and cuddles up closer. M looks to his left and finds the blonde is sleeping. He puts his arms under his head, looks up at the sky and sighs happily. M finished his progress report at the corpse camp two days earlier. They were coming around, slow, but gradual. He left the generator running so that they could see the re-runs of the shows and hear the president on the t.v. Just a little bit of humanity. Then he hopped down the road in Julie and R's convertible and made a pit stop at one of the other camps the stadium shared a somewhat brotherhood with. He loved doing solo missions. As soon as the ladies hear that you were part of the process of curing the damned, well, they all but drop their panties. M loved that about this new world.

He almost decided on picking an actual name. He was close to Michael, with it being biblical and all, but decided against it. He could be a symbol. Like Batman. Or Cher. He got bits and pieces of his old life, from what he could tell, he spent most of it in a place called The Happy Tap, some dive bar. Guzzling alcohol until his eyes rolled up in his head. It seemed like such a waste of existence. He has yet to drink a drop of alcohol, though in part that is due to most of it having been used for weapons. The women, on the other hand, well, you had to indulge in something, right?

The stars had all but disappeared, and the sky was turning an orange. The sun was rising on a new day. M always thought that this was God's cruel joke. It didn't matter if you were infected, if you weren't, if you had enough to eat, or had a warm place to call home. Everyday, the sun did rise.

And it was time for him to make his exit. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. He got to his feet, shrugged on his clothes, and walked over to the car.

The brunette sat up, wrapping a small blanket around her chest, eying him warily. "Where are you going?"

"To get breakfast. Just rest your pretty head, and I'll be right back."

"Okay, well, be back soon."

M gunned the engine and was off.

…...

Funny creatures, these humans were, the skeleton observed. Emotional. Unpredictable. But this human male looked familiar. He had been one of the damned. He could be of use. The skeleton had observed M's actions with the two females. It saw them leave them unguarded in the open field. It wondered if the wind carried their screams to his ears.